Birch & Bean is a small Asheville roaster founded in 2019 by two former QA cuppers who left a national specialty operation to build something with a tighter sourcing focus. The cafe is one room. The roastery is a Probat next door. The catalog is rarely more than ten lots at a time. They wholesale to a handful of independent shops within a three-state radius and ship direct via their site.
What separates them: the Burundi program. Most US specialty roasters source Burundi opportunistically through importers; Birch & Bean has spent three harvests building direct relationships with two washing stations in Kayanza, Long Miles-adjacent territory, and the resulting lots are some of the most consistent representations of Burundi terroir on the US specialty market. Their Heza Hill washed lot is in the top 10% of Northscores in our entire Burundi index.
Their roast development sits in the medium-light third-wave range without going under-developed in the way the producer-celebrity era has trended. Customer reviews flag jasmine, lemongrass, and a textured body that holds up across brew methods. The cohort of Cherrybook readers most likely to care: people who appreciate Long Miles, Sweet Bloom, or Sey but want a smaller-roaster value entry into the same sourcing tier.
Birch & Bean represents a class of roaster Cherrybook is built to surface. Small enough that mass-market discovery doesn't reach them. Rigorous enough that their per-lot decisions are worth following. The Spotlight Series exists to put roasters like this in front of buyers who care about sourcing as much as cup.
“The cleanest Burundi I've had outside of a Long Miles direct order.”
